Alexa is moving to speakers beyond the Amazon Echo

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence IoT Briefing subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here. Anker, a hardware accessory manufacturer, will introduce a new, Echo Dot-sized smart speaker with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant built in, according to The Verge. The new speaker, which will go on sale August 16 for $35, will give consumers a new way to add an Alexa-enabled speaker to their homes and is an early example of Amazon's plan to move Alexa beyond just its own hardware. Amazon is looking to make Alexa widely available to give consumers a wide variety of device options.